This section introduces aspects that may help facilitate a better understanding of the inventions. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is prior art or what is not prior art.
In recent years IEEE 802.11-based wireless local area network (WLAN) technology, referred to as WiFi, has been rapidly deployed all over the world and the vast majority of mobile devices are WiFi enabled, including laptops, PDAs and smartphones. Recently it has been proposed by both academia and industry to use WiFi for video and content distribution. However, IEEE 802.11 lacks adequate support for multicast services, which hinders the use of IEEE 802.11 technology as a means for video distribution to a large number of mobile devices. More specifically, according to the specification of the IEEE 802.11 standard, broadcast/multicast frames are transmitted at a fixed and low bit rate due to the absence of a feedback mechanism such as ACK. This simple broadcasting technique with no feedback mechanism raises some technical issues such as:
a. High packet loss due to interference and a hidden node problem, which may significantly degrade the quality of the provided video stream.
b. Low network utilization due to transmission at low bit rate.
Thus, new solutions and techniques that are able to address one or more of the issues encountered when using WiFi for video and/or content distribution would meet a need and advance wireless communications generally.
Specific embodiments of the present invention are disclosed below with reference to FIGS. 1-6. Both the description and the illustrations have been drafted with the intent to enhance understanding. For example, the dimensions of some of the figure elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements, and well-known elements that are beneficial or even necessary to a commercially successful implementation may not be depicted so that a less obstructed and a more clear presentation of embodiments may be achieved. In addition, although the logic flow diagrams above are described and shown with reference to specific steps performed in a specific order, some of these steps may be omitted or some of these steps may be combined, sub-divided, or reordered without departing from the scope of the claims. Thus, unless specifically indicated, the order and grouping of steps is not a limitation of other embodiments that may lie within the scope of the claims.
Simplicity and clarity in both illustration and description are sought to effectively enable a person of skill in the art to make, use, and best practice the present invention in view of what is already known in the art. One of skill in the art will appreciate that various modifications and changes may be made to the specific embodiments described below without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Thus, the specification and drawings are to be regarded as illustrative and exemplary rather than restrictive or all-encompassing, and all such modifications to the specific embodiments described below are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.